Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Leprechauns, Lucky Charms, and Losing It With Report Cards

Hello cyberbuddies. Lindsay here . . .

I feel as though I have been living in the movie Groundhog Day. Ya know . . . where Bill Murray wakes up and ever day its the same day again, and again, and again . . .and again. And again. You get the idea . . .

Anyway, in getting ready for conference week next week I have been assessing my little kidlets like crazy!! Assessing during centers. One-on-one assessments during recess and after school. Assessments during "educational video" time. Suffice to say, my class is ready for the assessments to be over!! Of course, then I still have the actual report cards to do. All 23 of them. By next week. Yikes. Hmmm . .. let's procrastinate some more, shall we? Let me fill you in on what my class was up to last week. (Besides all those assessments!)

First off, we had SO much fun celebrating Dr. Seuss all last week, although many of our fun activities have spilled over into this week too. One of the highlights of the week was on Friday when some handsome friendly local firemen came and read a Dr. Seuss book to the class. The teachers kids were so excited for our extra special guests! Fireman Travis even brought a red plastic fireman's hat for each kiddo to take home!

Then, of course, we jumped right into all of the wonderful madness of March! We made our adorable little leprechauns . . . . Can you see my favorite one in the bottom right corner? I love his crazy mouth and stilts for legs - classic!

And we have been continuing to work on our Five Senses Unit. The two most recent lessons we have worked on were hearing and sight. For hearing, my students sorted pictures according to what makes sound and what does not. This sparked LOTS of great discussion amongst the kidlets. Then they had so much fun illustrating each other and practicing their keen sense of sight. And we're not done yet . . . the TASTE lesson is yet to come and is the best of all! (And not just because it involves food.)

This unit is so much fun to teach! If you haven't already, go visit my TPT store HERE and check out this fun unit!

And finally, in preparation for celebrating St. Patties Day next week (AHHHHHH!! How did it get here so soon??!!) I have created a little Lucky Charms math center to help my little kidlets practice their graphing, counting, comparing numbers, and using tally marks. AND it gives them an excuse to eat sugar - yay! This is an activity that I do year after year with my kiddos, but I decided to beef up the data sheet that the students fill out this year AND create a color-coded sorting mat that will help the kids figure out which shape each colored marshmallow is. Because let's face it . . . they all end up looking a bit like rounded little blobs of colored sugar that don't quite resemble hats or horseshoes or pots of gold, right? Problem solved!! To purchase this little math activity for your March centers this month, click on the preview image below:

Alright, alright . . . I have put off the inevitable as long as possible. Time to buckle down and fill in some Excel spreadsheets in my fat pants. Yep, just living the dream here tonight people! :)